I still have plenty of red sheet left over from my sewing machine dust cover project. I decided in order to practice sewing/learn the intricacies of my sewing machine/make something that is just for me, I would make myself an apron. I don't actually own one... all of ours were brought into the household by my chef boyfriend. I wanted something girly and frilly. I looked at a couple tutorials to get a general idea, but I had something pretty specific in mind.
I lay out the sheet and marked out the top and bottom of the apron.
My lines weren't that dark, so I drew the lines on in paint. I measured approximately how big I wanted it to be on me. I then cut around that giving myself about an inch in seam allowance.
Then I cut some strips of fabric. I measure around the bottom and sides of the bottom portion for the ruffle, and doubled that amount. The measurement didn't go all the way across the sheet, so I cut two strips, 4 inches wide. Then I measured around the top and sides of the top, and again doubled that and cut a 3 inch strip. Then I cut two 5 inch strips for the string to tie around the back (I used an existing apron for that measurement) and one 3 inch strip from the measurement around my neck to where I thought the top would be (giving myself lots of extra length just in case).
For the neck part, I just pinned it in half, lengthwise, wrong side out, and ran it through the machine. I sewed the two back-tie parts together to make one long one, and then hemmed the ends. I then folded it in half, wrong side out, pinned and ran it through my machine. I used a bodkin to turn them right side out, and I got these two tubes.
They will look nicer once they are pressed.
I folded the small ruffle strip in half, wrong side in this time. I pinned it and then basted it with long stitches on one side, short on the other. Then I used a large zig-zag stitch over the basting, careful not to catch the basting string. I sewed together the two large ruffle pieces to make one long one, and did the same basting and zig-zagging to it.
I took the smaller ruffle and pinned the middle to the middle of the top section, onto the right side and raw edges together. I pinned all the way around, pulling the basting string to make the ruffles, and then ran it through the machine.
I did the same to the larger ruffle piece. And this is what it looks like when you fold it over.
Pretty! (At least I thought so...). Next I pulled out the iron, and pressed all the pieces, including the ruffles.
Looks much nicer! I then pinned the top and botton to the back-tie, and stitched that in place. I put it on, and measured where I wanted the neck tie to be, then stitched that on. And that was it! It was all slightly easier than I expected.
I'm quite pleased with the results!
(Please disregard my dirty mirror/closet mess. Thank you!)